Silence, please! When did everything get so very... loud?
Canned laughter reverberates through the carriage, as a group of teenage boys gather around a phone. The woman across the aisle is talking too, “Yeah, exactly mate, yeah… Because at the end of the day…”. Even the bleeping of the ticket inspector’s machine and the whirring of wheels on a track is going right through me.
It’s a typical train journey, but recently my commute – and everything else in my life – just feels So. Darn. Loud. As is my desire to stand up, mid-carriage, or to crack open my bedroom window and scream down onto the street below, “Can you all just shut the hell up, for five minutes?”
I’m in a co-dependent relationship with noise: I’ve a constant need to wear headphones (even if I’m just walking to Tesco around the corner), to have a podcast wittering away in the background while I’m washing up, and I refuse to move out of the city centre – where I live next door to a music venue and am subject to the constant hum of people. My boyfriend, meanwhile, regularly runs 10Ks sans music and would love to live in a shack in the middle of nowhere; a thought that low-key makes me want to die. And yet, recently, my busy - and exhausted mind - has been craving quiet.
It's not just me: take TikTok’s ‘quiet life’ trend that has been steadily growing over the past year, featuring deliciously simplistic videos of nature walks and laundry swaying in the breeze, along with getaways (like cabins offering ‘digital detoxes’ in remote locations) soaring in popularity. Is it any wonder?
Ooh baby, baby it's a loud world
Unsurprisingly, all of this sound could be detrimental to our wellbeing. An abundance of noise can do everything from raise our stress levels and blood pressure, to cause fatigue and impact on mental health, according to the World Health Organisation. If noise is impacting on your sleep too, well, that’s a whole other set of problems. But it’s about more than just an ‘urgh, the world is loud and nobody bothers to use headphones on public transport anymore’ feeling; we’re all trying to wade through an endless barrage of audible and visual stimuli – with bleeps, yelling and pings as the crowning glory.
“As humans, we’re always looking for alerts or stimulus that may require us to act – and if noise is present, it takes brain power to process and filter the sound,” explains Gordon Harrison, chief audiologist at Specsavers. “Filtering out noise takes energy and can reduce our ability to concentrate, which may make us tired.” He gives an example: we turn the music down while driving on an unfamiliar road, to help us ‘concentrate’ better.
It's a sentiment that Dr James Gill of Warwick Medical School, who evaluated contestants on Bear Grylls’ The Island in relation to the impact of noise and psychological wellbeing, echoes. He believes the constant bombardment of noise is linked to poor mental health in many patients. “As a GP, I think one of the contributing facets (and there are many) to the high case load of people with anxiety-based issues is the distractions we are immersed in. From roads, the bustle in shops, the pumping music in gyms, we rarely encounter quiet, and when we do, we’re liable to put on headphones, or distract ourselves with our phones.” The result of this, Dr Gill explains, is that ‘our concentration is always under attack’.
“We never get the chance - or allow ourselves to - mentally pause. As a result, rather than dealing with the routine events of life, we push them away, and akin to not keeping on top of the chores at home, things build up,” the doctor notes. “Eventually, we go from a few dishes on the side, to a whole house of clutter and general disarray.”
This idea of my brain being akin to a sink overflowing with plates, or a bin crammed with rubbish? Err, yep, unfortunately that checks out – I’ve started noticing patches of brain fog but only recently, have I started to think my audio obsession could be playing as big a part as work stress, in impacting this. I decide to lower the volume, and it soon feels like my shoulder begin to drop away from my ears too.
I start by ditching my headphones, not just for short walks but for an entire flight (okay, it was only to Paris but still I read a deliberately calm book instead…), on my commute and in the gym. Of course, I can’t avoid the clanking sounds of iron though, and still find myself a bit agitated by the sounds of chatting on the train – but during my early morning park walks, I appreciate hearing the birds chirp and the rustling of leaves. I find my mind starts to problem-solve some gaps in the novel I’m writing. I feel somehow liberated with life’s tumult turned down.
I’m not the only one on a quest for quiet as a result, confirms Harriet, 31, who says she’s found the world unbearably loud ever since the pandemic. She believes that living alone during multiple lockdowns has had a long-term knock-on effect: “The first time I went to a football match after the pandemic, I had to lie in a silent room for almost two days afterwards! While the noise sensitivity has eased off a bit, it’s still nothing like it was before.”
Years on from the height of the pandemic, Harriet is still cautious when planning her social life. “I actively think about noise levels,” she shares. “I now find so many of the bars and pubs I used to love are out. A lot of restaurants are unbearable, too. I use noise cancelling headphones on the tube with nothing on. It’s so stressful – and it’s getting worse.”
Carving out some quiet
As part of my ‘seeking silence’ experiment, I have found that some of the noisy stimuli around me just became more agitating without music to cover it – and audiologist Harrison agrees that not all sound is created equally. “Some sounds stimulate a more relaxed state of mind, things such as walking through trees or by the sea are well known to help with relaxation, as they are familiar sounds we’re comfortable in absorbing and processing without much mental effort,” he says.
I understand this: I can quite easily tune out a buzzy office and stick on an old r&b playlist without it being a distraction as I know all the songs back-to-front, whereas I know others who could never work whilst listening to music. I find it harder to concentrate with music on if the songs aren’t known to me, as my brain likes to get stuck into picking apart the lyrics. Some of my colleagues also rely on earplugs just to dampen external sounds in our workspace. One even loves the silence of a local library.
For Ciara McGinley, a former journalist, searching for silence triggered a change of career path. She now works as a meditation and breathwork instructor, running Finding Quiet retreats. “My 21-year-old self would have never thought I'd be delighted and at peace sitting by the water listening to the birds or watching the ducks at 27,” she says, recalling her revelation about the power of silence a few years ago. “I realised I was mindlessly scrolling to avoid doing or thinking about things – and how this made me feel. So, I vowed to spend more time in silence and see what came up for me.”
It's been a process of disconnecting, Ciara explains, “While I’ve gotten much better at this over the years, initially I still filled my walks with business podcasts, and was guilty of always having the TV or an audiobook on as I pottered about the house to keep me motivated. But earlier this year, I went on a two-night stay in a cabin in the woods with no WIFI, little signal and nothing to do. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I felt bored. But it felt transformative and made me realise I need even more silence and downtime in my days.”
Now, Ciara is a big fan of indulging in longer meditation sessions, putting her phone on ‘sleep mode’ at around 8pm, and makes a concerted effort to visit green spaces every day. She confesses that (when it’s safe to do so) she’s found having “noise cancelling headphones on the tube and trains has been a game changer”. She tends to stick a ‘brown noise’ (a deeper version of white noise) playlist on, which is also said to support relaxation and focus. “It helps me to tap into how I'm feeling, rather than get caught up in what's going on around me.”
Harriet says working from home a few days a week helps to keep her in a calm state too and adds that she “often chooses to have silence, rather than the radio or TV on in the evenings, just to feel peaceful”.
For anyone else looking to drop the volume dial, Dr Lisa Avery (best known as The Positive Psychologist) encourages seeking out quiet spaces (ideally in nature) and deliberately scheduling quiet time into your routine. “Allocate specific time for this, just like you would any other activity.”
Dr Gill adds that his “prescription for a noisy world” includes buying an alarm clock so that you can leave your phone in another room overnight and “growing your own protection; even if you don’t have a garden, covering your windowsill in plants will help to absorb sound reflections from your own room”. He also advocates spending 120 minutes in nature each week “with that being the intention and nothing else”. Don’t think about your step count, it’s all about the greenery.
As for me, I’m going to continue going on short walks without listening to music, instead intentionally tuning into the subtle sounds of nature, and deliberately seeking out quieter pathways, especially on the days I’m lacking in inspiration. Perhaps dropping the decibels from time to time will at least provide moments of calm, if only fleetingly, in a world where our choices over the sounds we’re exposed to feels increasingly out of control.
Follow Jennifer on Instagram
You Might Also Like
